Room 429, Thursday Afternoon

[raspberryturk]

Reno had managed to survive the first half of the day, and there was still more left to go. He might have actually been humming to himself a little as he pulled on his paintball gear- it didn't hurt to get ready in advance, not when you were planning on going out and shooting at people- and the song that he was humming might have sounded suspiciously like 'Happy Birthday.'

But today was really just a day like any other, honest, and he was going to go shoot people and paintball was going to be freaking awesome and birthdays were stupid and overrated, so it balanced out nicely.

Which was why he had switched to humming 'Danny Boy' by the time he set out for the preserve, an hour or so early so that he'd have time to find himself a nice spot to be sneaky from.

[Reno is not in his room, but his door is there, for one person in particular.]

Comments

[the_merriest]

He had that gun-club thing today. Right. So he wouldn't be here. And she'd swiped his ID card yesterday just to double-check that she wasn't remembering the date wrong. He hadn't said a word, damn him. She wouldn't even realize he had a birthday coming up if she hadn't seen the crackwhore ShinRa ID card way back when.

Her one fear was that people used fake birthdays on their ID cards, but she couldn't think of a good reason they'd do that.

So she waited until she was sure he was gone, and then taken the box down to his room. She set it in front of his door, where he'd be sure to see it, and took off again. Mission accomplished. Time to meet up with Dojima for paintball hijinx.

They might be sort of possibly split up and all, but she'd been working on it for ages, and it'd be a damn shame not to give him his birthday gift.

[raspberryturk]

Reno was a very brightly-colored mess of paintball failure.

And was totally grinning like an idiot despite the fact that he hadn't made it five minutes into the game.

And was utterly confused when he noticed the box. A lot. He hadn't told anyone it was his birthday, so this was maybe just a random .... box. Of some sort.

Or something of the like.

He bent over and picked it up, eying it warily.

[the_merriest]

It was a cardboard box, shut with masking tape. Nothing ticking, fairly light.

If Reno opened the box, he would notice two things inside.

One was a black armband of the type that he would probably recognize as armor. There were even two linked materia-shaped slots near the wrist.

The other was a slip of paper.

[raspberryturk]

Naturally, he went for the wristband first. Paper was boring, and damn, that was a nice looking armband.

He flipped it over a few times, studying it, 'hmm'ing faintly to himself, and then finally pulled out the paper to have a look at.

[the_merriest]

It was plain notebook paper, filled with handwriting.

Lightning Eater. Wearer is healed by elemental lightning magic.

SOS Haste. Haste status is granted when wearer's health is critically low, and removed again once wearer's health has been restored.

SOS Protect. Physical shield appears when wearer's health is critically low, and disappears once wearer's health has been restored.

Two linked materia slots. If they are wired properly. This was my first attempt at materia.

Happy Birthday.

[raspberryturk]

He must have read the writing two or three times before he finally put the note back into the box, and then pulled out the armband again, this time to actually put it on.

Rikku knew him entirely too well, he mused, smiling faintly to himself.

Entirely too well.